


you're wearing a suit

by guardianoffun



Category: Endeavour (TV)
Genre: Episode: s04e02 Canticle, M/M, Non-Consensual Drug Use
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-27
Updated: 2019-08-27
Packaged: 2020-09-27 19:41:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,422
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20413231
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/guardianoffun/pseuds/guardianoffun
Summary: The Canticle rewrite where Morse isn't quite so immune to the showbiz glitter, and is maybe a little more interested in Mr. Wilding than he pretends. It may or may not result in some drunken fumbling.





	you're wearing a suit

**Author's Note:**

> anon on tumblr requested a drabble so i... did this? not a pairing i'd thought about before but holy crap does it work out well. the ending im not like super jazzed with BUt who knows i might write some actual smut to follow later? 
> 
> WARNINGS for non-con drug use, this is Canticle after all.

“You,” he says, hand waving over Morse. “Are in a suit.” Morse finds his hands skimming his jacket, a little self conscious. He likes this suit. He says as much. Wilding smirks, something cocky in it. He goes on for a while about doors and keys, and if it wasn’t already obvious he’d taken something, it sure is now. Morse asks his vice, he tells him freely and Morse can’t help making some quip about breakfast. Wilding smiles, slightly softer. Morse smiles back before he can stop himself. He only asks what’s behind the door because it’s part of the investigation, he tells himself. Not that he expects much in the way of an answer, but Wilding says ‘love’ with a long look in his eye, and it trips Morse a little. Flicks a switch somewhere. 

Distantly, a penny drops, something about the case makes sense now. But Morse is stuck on the way Wilding says angels. The fear in his voice when he talks about Finch. Morse leans in close because he’s seen people on the edge before, and he can’t let Wilding fall. When his eyes glaze over and he’s clearly gone, Morse sits beside him for a while. He watches the rise and fall of his chest, he lays a blanket over his shoulders. He finds water and lays a glass out. Wilding doesn’t say anything, but he watches through hazy eyes. As Morse leaves, he almost hears him when he asks him to stay.

* * *

Morse is the one to suggest the little island when they start up the search. Wilding is nowhere to be found, it makes sense to go to the last place he left him. As he swings his torch around, he can’t help but notice the glass of water has been drunk, and then the pictures. 

They find him, then, over the river and beside a fire. All lit up by the flames, it’s quite an image. There is, Morse thinks, a strange kind of beauty in it. He supposes he can see the appeal of all the drugs if they make the flames dance higher, the embers glow brighter. Then Wilding flinches, he collapses into Thursday’s arms. It seems they make the darkness darker and the terror sharper too. 

Something curls in his chest, as they bundle him onto the boat and take him back. The same feeling that made him lay out the water earlier maybe. It makes him push the others back, and when Wilding screams at the sight of their torches, the same fear in his eyes as earlier, it makes him grab his arm and steady him. Makes him say “It’s alright, I’ve got you.” 

Wilding trembles despite the coat, Morse can feel it when he wraps an arm around his back. He storms past the others to get him inside, Thursdays holds the others back. It gives him time to find somewhere to lie Wilding down, to reassure him when he chokes out a scream again. He hears it, this time, when Wilding asks him to stay. Fingers pull on his shirt sleeve, the same suit he was wearing earlier. Wilding runs his thumb along the seam. 

“Morse, please. Don’t let me go.” 

It takes too long for the doctor to arrive, and when he does, Morse can’t help thinking Wilding was better off without him. He’s seizing, and they’re all just watching, so Morse turns away. 

* * *

He knows the answer now, all the pieces are falling into place and then Emma fucking drugs him. He realises that, just before the world explodes with noise and light and being, and it’s too much. His hands, slick with sweat, slip on the handle he can’t work the door. The stairs maybe, they seem like a a good idea; he has to get away from her voice.  _ What you take in with you is what you find in there.  _ It rings around his head, dents the inside of his skull. It’s loud and it hurts. He can see himself, and in him he sees his father and he can feel the acid creeping up his throat. 

He makes it upstairs somehow, but the floor is magnetic and it pulls him down. Someone is holding him by the legs, trying to stop him. He just wants to escape the sounds of his father and his mother and the broken glass. Everything he fears, everything wrong he’s made, every disgusting part of himself is spilling out of him. They crawl up his arms, pull on his hair and drag him down. The bullet that hit Thursday, his mother’s last words to him, Joan leaving, the time he was short to Strange, his father, Jakes leaving, Gwen’s face, Monica leaving, Susan leaving. Everyone is leaving and he can’t find them, he can’t find a way  _ out _ . Wilding left him, he’s gone too, everyone is always leaving. 

The ground comes up and swallows him whole, and he can feel it all on him still, hands pulling. Thursday’s voice booms, or perhaps it’s God; it shakes him and it terrifies him. It follows him down as he falls into Hell, fire licking at his heels and angels crashing down around him.

When he wakes up in the hospital, he’s not wearing his suit. 

* * *

“You’re still in a suit.” It’s been two years, but the voice hasn’t changed. Morse turns and looks Wilding over, and he smirks. Wilding’s clean shaven, but his hair is still a mess. He wears a suit in a light grey, lavender pocket square. His eyes are brighter than Morse remembers. 

“So are you.” Wilding shrugs, slides into the seat beside Morse and snatches his drink from the table. Morse doesn’t stop him, he’s not a fan of red wine anyway, and he’s already had four glasses. 

“It’s a formal event.” 

So it is, but it is boring, and Morse had to be roped into coming in the first place. Strange had been keeping him company till a pretty girl came along, and by that point Morse was more invested in tracing the stitching on the tablecloth than anything else. Wilding thinks so too, if the long look he’s giving Morse is any indication. They exchange pleasantries for a while, easy talk with little thinking and then the music gets a little louder, and Morse has to lean over to hear him. Wilding’s hand is on his arm at one point, as he laughs about some story, then on his hand, fingers feather light across the back of Morse’s. 

Someone calls for Wilding, and he goes to stand and Morse can’t help it he grabs his hand and asks him not to leave.

They stumble into a room off the main hall, an office maybe, because there’s a desk, but Morse is too distracted to notice. Wilding’s tongue is in his mouth, and his hands are on his face. He drags Morse up against the wall, so Morse can pin him against it with his hips. He lets Wilding’s fingers curl in his hair as he pulls his deeper, his own hands already reaching for Wilding’s belt. The room is so quiet, the music barely audible, just the hum of Wilding against his lips and fabric on hands as he tugs down his trousers. Before he can do anything else, Wilding pulls back all breathless and rumpled and stops him. Morse supposes he can probably call him Nick now. 

“Gotta get you out that fucking suit first,” he says and shoves Morse’s jacket off him. Morse laughs as Nick struggles with his tie for a second, so Nick shoves it in his mouth to shut him up. Morse laughs around it anyways. He manages to undo his shirt fairly easy, and then growls when he realises Morse has a vest on too. Morse lets his tie fall from his lips and leans forward, impatient and gropes Nick’s front again. He bites down on his lip, and Nick doesn’t seem to mind the intrusion, arms sliding around Morse’s neck so he can pull him down, deeper. It almost feels as though the world has shrunk, down to just this room, this wall; until there’s hardly any space anywhere and they’re having to fall into each other to fit. 

He remembers, as Nick gets his hands in his pants, the day he found him on the little island. Remembers the way Nick had spoke of infinite love with that look on him, and wonders if he has the same look on his own face now. 

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> hope u liked!!! also sorry for not at all clarifying the formal event at the end there, idk charity gala? wedding? something? i wrote this half asleep idk man sorry


End file.
